Aug 22 Martin Hannett: Homage to Delia Derbyshire

Any story of the Manchester music scene will always include Martin Hannett; the list of iconic punk and post-punk bands he has produced and worked with is seemingly endless: A Certain Ratio, Buzzcocks, John Cooper Clark, The Durutti Column, Happy Mondays, Jilted John, Joy Division, Magazine, New Order, The Psychedelic Furs, The Stone Roses and U2 to name just a few. He is, quite rightly, the man responsible for the ‘Manchester Sound’ and much of this work was done at Strawberry Recording Studios in Stockport.

However, from an early age, Hannett was engaged and enthralled with electronic music and science fiction, specifically Dr Who. These sounds were produced by early electronic music pioneer Delia Derbyshire at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Hannett went on to create some electronic and synthesizer music recordings at Strawberry Recording Studios in September 1982 and named this project Homage To Delia Derbyshire.

These recordings have now been released and the tracks simply called Homage To Delia Derbyshire Pt. 1 to Pt. 18. It is available as a CD where the booklet contains some of Hannetts personal notes about Delia Derbyshire as well as information on her musical experiments. There is also a limited edition of 300 copies of the album on 180 gram orange vinyl.

Although it is due for release on Friday 25th August outlets such as Amazon appear to be shipping it already.